VACUUMDB(1)

NAME
vacuumdb - garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database

SYNOPSIS

vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] [ -t | --table table [( column [,...] )] ]... [dbname]

vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] -a | --all

DESCRIPTION

vacuumdb is a utility for cleaning a PostgreSQL database. vacuumdb will also generate internal statistics used by the PostgreSQL query optimizer.

vacuumdb is a wrapper around the SQL command VACUUM. There is no effective difference between vacuuming and analyzing databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server.

OPTIONS

vacuumdb accepts the following command-line arguments:

-a
--all
    Vacuum all databases.

[-d] dbname
[--dbname=]dbname
    Specifies the name of the database to be cleaned or analyzed, when -a/--all is not used. If this is not specified, the database name is read from the environment variable PGDATABASE. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used. The dbname can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting command line options.

--disable-page-skipping
    Disable skipping pages based on the contents of the visibility map.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

-e
--echo
    Echo the commands that vacuumdb generates and sends to the server.

-f
--full
    Perform “full” vacuuming.

-F
--freeze
    Aggressively “freeze” tuples.

--force-index-cleanup
    Always remove index entries pointing to dead tuples.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

-j njobs
--jobs=njobs
    Execute the vacuum or analyze commands in parallel by running njobs commands simultaneously. This option may reduce the processing time but it also increases the load on the database server.

    vacuumdb will open njobs connections to the database, so make sure your max_connections setting is high enough to accommodate all connections.

    Note that using this mode together with the -f (FULL) option might cause deadlock failures if certain system catalogs are processed in parallel.

--min-mxid-age mxid_age
    Only execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a multixact ID age of at least mxid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent multixact ID wraparound (see Section 25.1.5.1).

    For the purposes of this option, the multixact ID age of a relation is the greatest of the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

--min-xid-age xid_age
    Only execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a transaction ID age of at least xid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent transaction ID wraparound (see Section 25.1.5).

    For the purposes of this option, the transaction ID age of a relation is the greatest of the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.

--no-index-cleanup
    Do not remove index entries pointing to dead tuples.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

--no-process-toast
    Skip the TOAST table associated with the table to vacuum, if any.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 14 and later.

--no-truncate
    Do not truncate empty pages at the end of the table.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

-P parallel_workers
--parallel=parallel_workers
    Specify the number of parallel workers for parallel vacuum. This allows the vacuum to leverage multiple CPUs to process indexes. See VACUUM(7).

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 13 and later.

-q
--quiet
    Do not display progress messages.

--skip-locked
    Skip relations that cannot be immediately locked for processing.

        Note
        This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.

-t table [ (column [,...]) ]
--table=table [ (column [,...]) ]
    Clean or analyze table only. Column names can be specified only in conjunction with the --analyze or --analyze-only options. Multiple tables can be vacuumed by writing multiple -t switches.

        Tip
        If you specify columns, you probably have to escape the parentheses from the shell. (See examples below.)

-v
--verbose
    Print detailed information during processing.

-V
--version
    Print the vacuumdb version and exit.

-z
--analyze
    Also calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.

-Z
--analyze-only
    Only calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum).

--analyze-in-stages
    Only calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum), like --analyze-only. Run three stages of analyze; the first stage uses the lowest possible statistics target (see default_statistics_target) to produce usable statistics faster, and subsequent stages build the full statistics.

    This option is only useful to analyze a database that currently has no statistics or has wholly incorrect ones, such as if it is newly populated from a restored dump or by pg_upgrade. Be aware that running with this option in a database with existing statistics may cause the query optimizer choices to become transiently worse due to the low statistics targets of the early stages.

-?
--help
    Show help about vacuumdb command line arguments, and exit.

vacuumdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:

-h host
--host=host
    Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket.

-p port
--port=port
    Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.

-U username
--username=username
    User name to connect as.

-w
--no-password
    Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password.

-W
--password
    Force vacuumdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

    This option is never essential, since vacuumdb will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, vacuumdb will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.

--maintenance-db=dbname
    When the -a/--all is used, connect to this database to gather the list of databases to vacuum. If not specified, the postgres database will be used, or if that does not exist, template1 will be used. This can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting command line options. Also, connection string parameters other than the database name itself will be re-used when connecting to other databases.

ENVIRONMENT

PGDATABASE
PGHOST
PGPORT
PGUSER
    Default connection parameters

PG_COLOR
    Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.

This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 34.15).

DIAGNOSTICS

In case of difficulty, see VACUUM(7) and psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.

NOTES

vacuumdb might need to connect several times to the PostgreSQL server, asking for a password each time. It is convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file in such cases. See Section 34.16 for more information.

EXAMPLES

To clean the database test:

    $ vacuumdb test

To clean and analyze for the optimizer a database named bigdb:

    $ vacuumdb --analyze bigdb

To clean a single table foo in a database named xyzzy, and analyze a single column bar of the table for the optimizer:

    $ vacuumdb --analyze --verbose --table='foo(bar)' xyzzy

SEE ALSO
VACUUM(7)